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That noxious feeling of anxiety hasn’t been bothering me so much over the last month or so, but I can feel it looming over me again.
I trusted Amber, and she’s left me in the lurch.
We’ve got a photographer coming in a few days to take some promotional photos for the website, and vomit-stained walls are the last thing I need right now. Adding to my frustration, Ernest is demanding to review the photos, and I know he’ll be looking for anything to pick out and critique.
I try Amber’s phone again, and for the sixteenth time in a row, it goes straight to voicemail.
I’m not even entirely sure what happened between us. One minute, we’d been getting along just fine. I might’ve even called us friends —goodfriends. I’d begun to look forward to the little pockets of alone time we’d steal every day and the feel of her arm brushing against mine as we sat on our beanbags and worked. Knowing that she was beginning to seek me out for lunch brought a smile to my face every day. She’d opened up to me, sharing her journey to home ownership with me and telling me about her rocky relationship with her parents. I’d even introduced her to Nel and ignored my sister’s smug smirk when Amber waved at her through the screen.
When she told me that Cynthia had assigned her a new project, I’d been irritated but not worried. I’d worked with Amber long enough to trust her, to believe that she could juggle both projects with relative ease. And outside of the job, I guess I’d naively hoped that the foundations of the friendship we’d started to build would be enough to keep this going. But here we are with ten days until the launch and I don’t think we’ve said a word to each other in person in days.
I grab my phone to give her another call, and as I do so, it buzzes with an email notification.
FROM:Amber Wyatt
SUBJECT:RE: URGENT
BODY:Give me 20 mins. I’m on my way.
I wait impatiently for her in the reception area. This part of the club looks amazing, but I can’t even force myself to admire the results of her hard work because of that damn wall.
I try to convince myself that it’s illogical, childish even, for me to be so riled up about one thing when the rest of the property is nearly perfect. I tell myself that I need to take a deep breath, step back, and trust that Amber will sort this all out. The same way she dealt with the wrong cushions and the poor tiling job. The same way she will probably deal with the seedy lighting in the bathroom whenever she’s next in.
Amber will handle it.
The thought lands in my mind with surprising clarity, and I know it to be true. I reach for my phone again, intending to send her an email apologising for being so high-strung, but then the door flies open and Amber comes storming in.
Her face is like thunder, an almost identical look she wore on the day we met. She scans the room and finds me sitting on the foot of the stairs. I give her a weak smile, but it isn’t returned.
“What’s wrong?” she asks, her tone brisk and clipped. As she steps farther into the room, the entrance door swinging shut as she goes, I notice a few things. Like how tired she looks. There are big, purplish bags under her bloodshot eyes, and her hair holds all the signs of having had a hand run through it anxiously for hours on end. She walks with a slight slouch, like she doesn’t currently possess the energy to stand tall.
She looks like a woman on the edge, and I’m worried that I may have helped push her there.
“Amber, I—”
“Just tell me what theurgentproblem is.” Her voice is more of a sigh than anything else. “I’m tired. I’m hungry. I just want to sleep. So hurry up.”
There’s no room for argument there, so I mumble, “Second floor lounge.”
She nods and strides past me. I follow her up the two flights of stairs and brace myself as we enter the lounge. The vile shade of yellow jumps out at me as soon as we walk in. The paint has clearly had time to fester and seep into the walls, and I think it may have gotten uglier since I last saw it.
Amber steps into the room and her whole body stills for several seconds. She suddenly doubles over and I lurch forward, thinking she’s about to faint. The only thing that stops me from grabbing her and keeping her upright is the hysterical and incredibly high-pitched laugh that comes out of her mouth.
She throws her head back, shoulders shaking, tears forming, and laughs. “Oh mygod.” She manages to get the words out between cackles. “What…what the hell is this?”
Despite the absurdity of the situation and my confusion, I crack a smile too. “My thoughts exactly.”
She wipes at her eyes and gives me a watery smile. “Okay, yes.Thiswas urgent. But only this one. The rest of your emails were just annoying.”
“So youhavebeen getting them?”
She ignores my question and instead reaches out and gingerly touches the wall. “This is obviously the wrong colour. There must’ve been a mix-up at the warehouse and they’ve sent the wrong colour. Wish they would’ve used their common sense, but…” She trails off and shakes her head before turning to me. “It’ssupposedto be more of a saffron yellow — warm and inviting. This is—”
“It looks like puke.”
“Exactly.” She makes a face and runs a hand through her hair. “What did Ric say?”
“He hasn’t been around. I think he’s out for a few days. I flagged it with the guy he put in charge, but he said this was the colour they were told to use.”
